IMPOSTER SYNDROME: YOU DID IT. SO WHY CAN’T YOU SAY IT?

A few weeks ago I sat with a client who had just received the kind of feedback most of us wait years for: clear, specific, high praise from a senior lead. I had barely said “Congratulations, you deserve it!” and she was already telling me what she could have done better, or how she could have prepared more for the presentation. You know the words…

Later that same week, another client told me his lead had picked him to run a new project, and within a breath he had explained it away: “There probably wasn’t anyone else available; that’s why they gave it to me.” Not that he was the right person for the job, not his skill set, not his expertise. None of that.

Different people, different companies, same root.

Neither of them was being modest. They were running a pattern so automatic and so common in their lives that they didn’t notice it until I said it back to them.

Imposter syndrome is the theme I see most in my work, with tech leads, in law, and in education, at every level, no matter how long they’ve been doing the job or how good they are at it. And the part people talk about least is the one I see most.

WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE IN THE ROOM?

Imposter syndrome, named the imposter phenomenon by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in 1978, is when you doubt your abilities, feel like a fraud, and struggle to believe your own successes, even when the evidence that you’re competent is right in front of you.

Dr. Valerie Young describes five types of imposter syndrome, each one a different internal rule about what makes a person “competent,” and most of us recognize ourselves in more than one.

• The perfectionist believes that if it wasn’t perfect, it didn’t count.
• The natural genius believes that if they had to work hard or struggle, they must not really be talented.
• The soloist believes that if they needed any help, the work doesn’t count as theirs.
• The expert believes they have to know everything before they’re allowed to act.
• And the superhuman believes they have to excel at every role at once or else they’ve failed at all of them.

Listen, these aren’t flaws. They’re brain strategies that made sense once, usually a long time ago and in a place that probably doesn’t exist anymore, and they kept running long after we stopped needing them.

IT’S NOT ABOUT BELIEVING. IT’S ABOUT BEING ALLOWED.

For a lot of people, the challenge isn’t “I don’t believe I earned this.” Rather, it’s “I’m not allowed to say I earned this.”

In many cultures, and in many families, naming your own successes out loud doesn’t sound like confidence. It sounds like bragging, like something a humble, likeable, good person doesn’t do. So even when someone has all the evidence that they’re good at what they do, and they know it, there’s a second, quieter rule underneath, and it stops them from saying it to anyone, sometimes even to themselves.

I know this one from the inside. For years I gave Enneagram (personality type) workshops, and I loved them, and then after my last one, an attendee, who also teaches the Enneagram, sent me their feedback: too many words on my slides, they lost interest in what I was saying because I sounded too nervous and I clearly needed more practice. I never gave another Enneagram workshop. Not one. One voice, and I quietly decided I wasn’t allowed to call myself someone who teaches this because clearly I wasn’t good enough to do it.

Then last month, at a gathering, a few people started talking about the Enneagram test they had just taken, and I could tell they were nervous to share. So I asked what they thought of their results, and one man said he didn’t like what he read; there was so much of it that he got confused, and honestly, it made him feel like he wasn’t a good person. I offered to explain his type, and as I walked him through his strengths, his challenges, and why it matters so much to have someone like him in a family or on a team, one person after another started asking me about theirs.

Then he looked at me and said, “Miriam, you’re a genius! You just met me, and you described me to a T. How is that possible?” And this time I didn’t explain it away. In fact, the answer came so fast: “Because I’m that good. It’s my expertise. This is part of what I do.” His comment meant so much to me, even more coming from a man, since men are often more skeptical of personality work. It also reminded me how long I had let one piece of feedback decide what I was allowed to say about myself.

The way back to owning your work doesn’t have to be a big, brave announcement. Most of the time it starts small, and I’ve watched clients find great ways around this quiet rule. One client started adding her wins to her weekly check-in with her team, so the good news became part of a routine instead of a spotlight on her, and that small change let the evidence in without making her feel like she was showing off. That’s wisdom: finding a version of the practice that works with who you are instead of against it.

THIS MATTERS SO MUCH RIGHT NOW

​In a year when so many of us are being asked to prove our value again and again, the gap between what you’ve done and what you’re willing to say out loud has real consequences. And the people I see carrying imposter syndrome the most are doing great work, while quietly discounting every piece of proof that they belong exactly where they are.

And when they finally ask for help, this is usually the advice they get:

“Believe in yourself!”
“Practice positive thinking!”
“Use positive self-talk!”
“Grow your mindset!”

This advice is too big a jump, and honestly, it won’t work initially. What needs to happen first is smaller and more practical.

WHAT ACTUALLY HELPS

Keep an evidence log, just for you. Every week, write down what you did, what happened as a direct result of your work, who was impacted, and any real feedback you received. No comparisons, no judgments, no feelings, just facts. Keep it simple.

It may look like this:

The task (what you did or worked on): _________________
The results (what changed, who was impacted): _________________
The feedback (what was explicitly said to you): _________________

And then (this is the part people skip), read it back. Nobody else has to see it, and you don’t have to announce anything to anyone yet. You’re simply witnessing yourself, building a record your inner critic can’t argue with, and getting more comfortable with your work. With time, saying it out loud in a meeting won’t be so difficult.

This works because it helps your brain bypass the emotional bias we all have by treating the evidence purely as data. Imposter syndrome distorts our perception, and we mistake our feelings for facts. Strip away the interpretations, and you’re left with an undeniable record of your own agency and impact. It’s what I call separating feelings from facts.

WHAT IF YOU LEAD A TEAM?

Your team is watching you. So go first. Name one win out loud in a team meeting, as a fact, without explaining it away, and you’ll be telling everyone in the room that it’s allowed. If they don’t share theirs, you can ask them what they did and what the impact of their work was. Help them see what they made possible. Make wins part of the routine meetings, the way my client did with her weekly check-in. Nobody has to brag, because it’s just how the meeting works.

And when you hear someone brushing off their work, just ask, “What did you do that made it work?” and let them find the evidence themselves. That’s how a whole team, not just one person, starts owning its work.

WHERE DOES THIS SHOW UP FOR YOU?

Think about the last time something went well, and you were already explaining it away before you finished the sentence. What was the story underneath?

“I am not really that good.”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“I shouldn’t really say it.”

None of those stories mean you’re right. They mean you have a pattern, and once you can see the pattern, you get to choose whether to keep running it or not.

If this is landing for you, I write about patterns like this in my newsletter, a letter I send every 2-3 weeks about what I’m living and learning. Join here → 

And if you want to work through your own version of this live, let’s talk.

Book a session here →

With love and gratitude,

Miriam

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